Monday, 17 March 2014

I
was pleased to have the opportunity to sketch this orchestra over a
couple of days. Their publicity department had used my picture of Ordsall Hall, where they're playing this very week, so I made a deal to sit in on rehearsals.

They're
based in Media City UK
on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford.

The
BBC's move marked a large-scale decentralisation from London, and
the North of England has profited from this. From the top floor of the building we could just about see Coronation Street's factory wall- what a thrill!

It
took at least the first morning's drawing to feel comfortable, and to
have some sense of the direction or focus my work might take. Because
this was a rehearsal, the music would start and then suddenly stop and the conductor would gently encourage the musicians in a mixture of English and Italian.
This was a bit distracting at first, and the longer pieces of music encouraged inspiration and a better
flow to the pencil.

The
musicians were a nice bunch, interested in what we were doing, as we
were in them- we're all artists, aren't we?!

I
used my sketches in the studio later, along with photographs, to
produce a larger work, below.

BBC Philharmonic, Studio Drawing 44cm x 122cm

This
is one of the traditional uses of the sketchbook.. as Fine Art
students we were we were encouraged to use them for various purposes:
as preliminary drawings prior to painting; to explore new ideas, thus
developing creativity; as visual diaries of the external world and as
drawing practise, and to re-visit as source material for inspiration.

Our
books were untidy, experimental, fearless and anarchic.

I'd
like to get back to that level of 'insouciance' -it's so easy to
blinker oneself by worrying about a good result on the page to be
shown to others, rather than opening up to new approaches and
unfamiliar materials.

About Me

I was born during one of the worst winters on record in Sharoe Green Maternity Hospital, Preston.
Brought up on a post-war housing estate, archived drawings (aged five) already show a keen eye for detail such as washing on a line and fluff under a bed.
By the age of nine I was copying photos of the stars from the Radio Times, feeling that my inherent shyness precluded a career as an air hostess.
I studied at the Harris School of Art in Preston, a grand Neo-Classical building with sweeping steps leading to Avenham Park and the river.
An extra year's Foundation course was spent at the palm-clad Falmouth School of Art. from there I went to London, leading to a Diploma in Art and Design from the Central College of Art.
I spent twenty years in Brittany, France, and now live in the North-West of England.
My work leans towards the urban and the architectural, yet I'm equally happy with landscape, portrait, still-life and the nude.